


the farther you go from where you start the harder it is to get back

by nuricurry



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, Spoilers for KH3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 16:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18525628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuricurry/pseuds/nuricurry
Summary: Riku feels unsteady on his feet, and he trips over them constantly. He figures it’s because Sora isn’t there to grab him by the arm and help him back up.Post-KH3. Spoilers.





	the farther you go from where you start the harder it is to get back

When he returns to the Islands, he feels off balance. 

He isn’t surprised by that; given the circumstances, given everything that happened over the past year (or two, or three, or ten years maybe), it’s natural that he feels weird. Coming back to the Destiny Islands on his own, without Kairi, without Sora, is like opening a present only to find nothing inside the box. On the surface, it looks all nice and decorated, and he knows it should make him happy. But then he lifts the lid, sees only emptiness within, and the illusion crashes down around him. It’s a numbing, hollow feeling. 

Part of his brain, the part that can’t stop thinking the thoughts of a Master, even though he’s been told to take some time off and have a break, likens it to one of those Sleeping Worlds. Or maybe it’s better compared to a data simulation; it looks like it should be right, but once he’s inside, it all feels wrong. 

Riku feels unsteady on his feet, and he trips over them constantly. He figures it’s because Sora isn’t there to grab him by the arm and help him back up.

He is usually the only person who ventures out to the island anymore. Everyone else-- Tidus, Selphie, Wakka-- they all grew up. They went to school, they played sports and joined clubs and teams, and had normal things to occupy their time. Everyone’s graduated now, all of them have jobs, or hobbies that keep them away from the island they once used to spend hours exploring as kids. Selphie sells ice cream on the boardwalk on the mainland, Tidus and Wakka are part of the Blitzball team. Riku heard Tidus say he got a scholarship somewhere thanks to it, and there was a party coming up where they were all celebrating finishing high school and moving on to the next stages of their lives. Riku was been invited, but he holds doubts about going; it’d be weird without Sora or Kairi, and it wasn’t like he’d taken Algebra exams or finished essays on required reading that he was now celebrating his freedom from.

He was pretty sure that if Sora knew, he’d tell him to go anyway, probably nagging him about it, calling him a worrywart about nothing. 

_“You think too much, Ri-ku,”_ he’d say, stressing out the syllables of his name as he pressed his hands against his cheeks, and made a face.

 _“Yeah, well I make up for you not thinking at all,”_ Riku would always say back to those sort of jibes, which never failed to make Sora laugh. 

He missed hearing Sora’s laugh.

It took a month of going to the island every day to realize that was what he was looking for every time he went there. At first, he thought maybe he was just exploring because he wanted to see how different it was from the last time he’d been there. He wanted to see things through the eyes of someone older, someone who didn’t have something painful and horrible hanging over his head. The last time he was on the island, he’d found a way to be at peace with himself, or, as much as someone like him could ever be. He’d always feel guilty about what he’d done, to Sora, to Kairi. The anger he felt as a child had warped into a monster that literally came back to fight him again as an adult. 

But, everyone had to face their demons sometime. Riku’s just happened to be a sort of literal battle for supremacy over his shortcomings, rather than something metaphorical. His past was a physical presence that haunted him, and so the last time he’d been on the island before they made their stand against Xehanort, he had forced himself to look at the person he had once been, the person who he very nearly could have stayed as, in the eye and admit everything he’d done wrong. 

He had lied. He had trusted the wrong people. He blamed Sora for things out of his control. He treated Kairi more like a weapon than like a friend. He allowed himself to fall into darkness because he was so afraid of Sora’s light. He made mistakes, again and again, and he could spend every day of the rest of his life trying to be better, and still feel like he would never make up for all the mistakes he’d made. 

For a while, that was what he thought he was looking for on that island-- some sort of absolution, or redemption, some reminder of who he had been before everything had happened, before it’d all changed so much. Instead, what he found was an old raft and a tree that smelled of tropical fruit and sea salt. But what he really wanted was to find Sora’s laughter, his smile, his warm hand gripping onto his. Even a trace of him, a fragment, or memory, something that would tie them together, despite the seemingly endless distance between them. 

Failing to find what he thought he was looking for on the island sent him away again. Riku’s life, in some respects, seemed to be cyclical. He’d feel trapped and suffocated, so he’d leave one place, hoping that he’d find fresh air and purpose somewhere else. It happened more than once, and every time he hoped it would stick, but time and time again, he’d wind up disappointed. King Mickey told him to take some time to himself after Sora left to find Kairi, but he couldn’t stand to be by himself, not on the Islands, so he called for a Gummi and left to find somewhere else to spend his seemingly endless expanse of free time. As a Master of the Keyblade, he knew he’d be busy again eventually; but right then, his friends were trying to be merciful, and their kindness was killing him.

Aqua, it seemed, understood. 

The Land of Departure was her home, and when he saw her in it, she so clearly fit. She walked through the halls with the sort of fluid grace a dancer or actress used to cross a stage. Her smiles were warmer, her eyes brighter, and he couldn’t imagine her being trapped in the Dark for as long as she had been, because she simply seemed to exude so much light. Aqua was, in Riku’s eyes, everything a Master should be-- everything he couldn’t seem to manage-- and he admired and revered her. 

“You shouldn’t put me on such a high pedestal,” Aqua gently corrected him once, when he’d admitted his thoughts to her, “I’m hardly the perfect Keyblade wielder. I fell into the Darkness myself; no one can be perfect.”

“It’s not about perfect,” he had argued. Normally, he’d never so brazenly contradicted something Aqua said, considering the years she had on him, and the more legitimate training she had with the Keyblade versus his attempts at being self-taught, but he couldn’t help himself right then. “If I had just been a little stronger, if maybe I had done something more… If I had followed him--!”

“Riku,” Aqua said, as she reached out, and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. She was half a head shorter than him, but it still felt as if he was looking up to her, when he reluctantly met her eyes, “You can’t live your life drowning in your regrets.”

 _Ah,_ his mind seemed to say to him, at the sound of those words. So that’s what that feeling was; drowning. 

He was drowning without Sora. 

“Why don’t you stay here for a little while?” Aqua offered, ever generous, always empathetic. She squeezed his shoulder, and spared him a smile, “We could always use the help with running things around here. Ven’s got it in his mind to try finding other potential wielders and training them here. I could use the experience of another Master.” 

The Land of Departure was a world full of open skies and countless cliffs that seemed to lead down into endless depths. For as expansive as it was, Riku felt the same way there that he had on the Islands; trapped, confined, suffocated. He did his best to return Aqua’s smile, though he shook his head. 

“I’ll have to think about it.” 

Thankfully, she accepted that. And later, when he gave her his goodbyes, she didn’t try to make him stay.

It was easier, at least for a little while, when he went to Twilight Town. 

The clocktower was nice, just like he’d always been told. It was a good view, and it was quiet. Riku needed that a lot lately: quiet. He had always been a more reserved person anyway, but in the past few years, he found that he could relax better when there wasn’t a lot of noise drowning out his thoughts. He got overstimulated too easily; there was that knee-jerk reaction of needing to feel like he was involved and aware of everything going on around him that made crowded places and bustling social events difficult. It’s why he liked having just a few friends...and probably why he hadn’t minded the Darkness as much as he should have. The Darkness was horrible and dangerous, but it was also peaceful in a way. It was oblivion, and there were times where that was all Riku wanted. He’d never admit it to anyone else, but there were times that he missed nothingness, and silence. 

He was found on the clocktower eventually, because in spite of it’s high perch, it was pretty popular. The first person that appeared around the corner was the tall lanky figure of Lea, who was talking over his shoulder to someone else. Then Isa appeared, just as tall but a little broader, and the two of them looked surprised for a moment to see Riku sitting there. 

“Oh, hey,” Lea gave a mock salute with two fingers, “Didn’t expect to find anyone up here. The other kids usually are running around at the arcade around this time.” 

‘Other kids’ included Hayner, and Pence, and Olette, and now Xion and Roxas too, though Riku couldn’t help but feel a bit-- awkward? endeared?-- that he was included among the group of ‘kids’ that Lea spoke about. He certainly didn’t feel like a kid. He hadn’t felt like one in a long time. Physically, he was in that transitional stage between adolescence and adulthood, older than the other teenagers but younger than people like Aqua and Terra. Emotionally, he probably hadn’t been a child since he was fourteen. Not since he had realized his mistake in choosing to run away from home, changing the course of destiny, and scattering his friends across the worlds. He hadn’t been a child since he had shut the door and sealed himself in a world of darkness, which forced himself to grow up.

“Um,” Riku said, as he shifted in the spot he sat on the edge of the tower. Then, he added inexplicitly, “Sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Lea asked him with a quirked brow, before dropping himself down to sit a few feet away from him, and silently, Isa joined him. Riku saw how their legs pressed together due to the close proximity in which they sat. He saw how Lea leaned over, and whispered something in Isa’s ear, which earned him a flat look, and an exasperated snort from the other. The two of them shared a smile, and Riku felt as if he had suddenly intruded on something personal, despite being on the clock tower first. He very nearly got to his feet, in order to leave, but the sound of Lea’s voice being directed at him stopped Riku. 

“Is everything okay? This a pleasure visit, or business?” 

He turned to look towards the others as he tried to decide how to answer that question. 

“Ah,” Isa said, in a soft drawl, “The ever elusive ‘forced pleasure-business’ trip.” Lea quirked a brow at him, and Isa explained, “When you’re forced to take a vacation, but you can’t stop feeling like you have to do something. So you just go to work anyway, under the pretense of pleasure.” 

“Huh,” Lea blinked, then scoffed, “I’ve never had that particular problem.”

“No, I suspect you wouldn’t.”

Isa got a shove of Lea’s shoulder into his for that comment, but it was accompanied by a laugh. 

“Can’t resist the urge to make some sort of smart-ass comment, huh?”

“Well, when you make them so easy…”

There was a knot in Riku’s throat that he couldn’t swallow. It choked him, hard and obstructive and painful, and unbidden, tears stung at the corners of his eyes, which he tried in vain to blink away, at the same time he struggled for breath. Isa and Lea didn’t notice at first, too distracted in ribbing one another, but when Lea glanced back towards Riku to make another comment, he saw how he was now rubbing at his eyes, and coughing in hopes of loosening some of the tightness in his chest. “Hey, you alright?” he asked and reached out to put a hand on Riku’s shoulder. 

“Y-Yeah. I’m fine. Just got something stuck in my throat,” Riku responded. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth either; the only thing stuck was Riku, trapped in this endless cycle of loneliness and longing, while surrounded by other people. “I’m going to go find the others. You said the arcade right?” he reaffirmed. Once he got a nod from Lea, and a raised eyebrow from Isa, he got to his feet, and retreated from the clock tower, still trying to rub his eyes until the urge to cry faded. 

He didn’t head to the arcade. Instead, he just left again, going back to that old habit of picking up everything and running away when it hurt too much. He was supposed to be a Master now, he was supposed to be set a good example for how to handle problems, and stand up even when things were difficult.

That had been a lot easier when it was Sora who he was standing for, when he knew that Sora was going to be right beside him, no matter how things turned out. 

“Sora really knew how to make it feel like everything would be alright, didn’t he?” Naminé remarked, wearing that usual sweet smile of hers. 

Riku had gone to visit her in Radiant Garden because Naminé didn’t ask a lot of questions. She didn’t ask him why he had come, she didn’t ask him what he wanted to do while he was there. That was the question he hated the most, because it was the question he could dodge the least. He had to be traveling to all these places for a reason, and Riku got the sense that no one wanted to hear that his answer was, _“I want to keep busy so I forget how much everything hurts.”_

Riku shifted in the chair he was sitting in-- the chair that Naminé pushed him onto and told him to hold still while she sketched his likeness onto her pad of paper. “Hm, well,” he hummed, and he saw her lift her head and watch him for a moment, while he tried to think of the right words to explain the thought he had going through his head, “It was more like...Sora made it feel as if even if everything did go wrong, it wouldn’t matter. He’d still be there in the end, and that…” Riku frowned, and his eyebrows briefly came together, before he finished that thought, “...that was enough. Sora was there, and he’d find a way to fix it. He was always good at that.” Riku, on the other hand, felt as if he was always good at the opposite: breaking things. 

Naminé didn’t respond for a long moment. The only sound from her came from the scratching of her charcoal against the thick grain of the paper. Then, quietly, she said, “And now Sora’s not here. So it doesn’t feel like things will be alright.” 

Riku’s eyes lowered. “Yeah.” That pretty much summed it up. They both went quiet again after that, and for a while there was only that echo of _scritch scritch scritch_ as Naminé sketched.

“Then you should find him,” her voice cut through the silence of the room, so sudden and jarring that it made Riku feel as if he had nearly toppled out of his chair. Or, maybe it was just her words that gave him that feeling. “Sora,” she clarified, as if Riku hadn’t already jumped to ten dozen conclusions as to her meaning the second those words left her mouth, words that shot through the core of him, and left a gaping hole in their wake. 

“What?” he wheezed, breathless. Naminé didn’t miss a beat. 

“You should go find him. That’s what you’ve been wanting to do this whole time, isn’t it?”

Riku didn’t say anything at first. Truthfully, he didn’t have anything to say; Naminé was right after all. All these trips, all these visits from one world to the next, it was because he couldn’t sit still, but he also didn’t know where to go. He knew what he wanted, but he wasn’t supposed to want that; he wasn’t supposed to think about diving into world after world, hoping that eventually, he’d find Sora in one of them. He was supposed to be responsible, he was supposed to be an example, he was supposed to be the one that people could depend on, while Sora was away…

“Riku,” Naminé said in her soft, gentle voice, “You aren’t going to find Sora here.”

In a rush, all of the breath he had been holding in his lungs was expelled out of him. He felt hollowed out, scraped raw, but it didn’t hurt. For the first time in a very long time… Riku’s heart didn’t hurt. 

Naminé was right. He wasn’t going to find Sora on the Islands, or on top of the clock tower, or sitting in a room with Naminé, letting her sketch him. He was going to all the places he already knew Sora wasn’t in, and then moving on to another when he couldn’t find him. It didn’t make sense, though very little in Riku’s life lately did, and he needed someone to point out the obvious to him, in order for him to fully realize. 

The chair scraped a little against the floor as Riku got to his feet. “You’re right,” he stated, which made her smile, and lift her eyebrows a bit, the expression one that spoke of her choice to resist in teasing him, “Thank you, Naminé.” 

Naminé stood as well, setting her drawing supplies aside onto the seat before she approached Riku. Coming to a stop in front of him, she reached up towards Riku’s face… and rubbed her thumb along his nose, smearing a streak of the charcoal dust from her hands across it. “Tell Sora he still owes me some thanks himself,” she laughed, as Riku reached up and tried to wipe away the black streak on his face, though he sensed he was only making it worse. 

“Oh, don’t worry. I have a lot of things I need to remind Sora about, once I find him,” Riku returned her smile, and his remark only made Naminé laugh again, soft and breathy. 

“Don’t scare him off, Riku.” 

For a moment, she looked and sounded so much like Kairi that Riku nearly forgot where he was for a moment, a feeling that almost reminded him of the drop that came when he’d slip into one of the Sleeping Worlds. But then she was Naminé again, and he shook that feeling aside. 

“Once I find Sora, I’m not going to let him run off again,” he promised.

 _Not without me with him_ , he added silently to himself.


End file.
